It was raining last Thursday when I walked the block or so from the Marriott Marquis Hotel in San Francisco, where Meda was attending the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, to a building down Mission Street that houses the California Historical Society and its North Baker Research Library. Luckily I remembered to bring a plastic bag to cover my wet umbrella so that I wouldn’t be drooling water across the polished floor from the front door, past the exhibits of Yosemite history, and into the library.

I wasn’t on a mission from God, but did have marching orders from my sister, Bonnie. When she heard I would be in San Francisco for several days with time on my hands while Meda worked through her busy conference schedule, Bonnie quickly gave me an assignment.

I was to proceed to the historical society’s library and scan the second handwritten volume of a journal kept by our great-great-grandmother covering a 50-year period. To be more specific, the author was the maternal grandmother of my mother’s father, Duke Yonge.

So, following her instructions, I entered the library, located next to the stairs in the back of the building, and filled out a request form for one of the manuscripts in their collection.

Elizabeth Fitzgerald B. Knowlton memoirs and diary: ms, 1857-1907.

Author: Knowlton, Elizabeth Fitzgerald Brittain, 1834-1907.

Call Number:MS Vault 128

The librarian disappeared, and returned shortly with two large ledger books containing a handwritten journal in two bound volumes on lined paper.

Here’s how one catalog describes the documents.

Describes the author’s 1858-1859 overland journey from Tuscumba, Missouri via the Kansas plains, across the Missouri River, along the Platt River to the Utah Territory, then across the desert to Carson Valley, Nevada, and over the Sierras to Sacramento, Calif. Also discusses events of subsequent years, which included raising four daughters, caring for a sick husband, and making a living after his death.

I asked to see the second volume, which was then placed on a plastic stand to minimize handling. I could carefully turn the pages, but apparently was not supposed to pick up the book. And my assignment was to make digital scans of the entire volume. Bonnie managed to do the first volume on an earlier visit to San Francisco, and has already completed an annotated transcription of the handwritten original. She’s anxious to continue on to volume two, and I was to be her connection.

The scanning took less than 90 minutes, and that included my taking breaks to read random pages. I scanned two pages at a time using the Cam Scanner Pro app. Surprisingly, the iPhone camera is good enough that it had no problem at all producing very legible scans from the original. Some pages were missing, having been torn out at some point in the document’s history. I think I scanned 70 images, all but a handful containing two pages.

I discovered one problem when I got to the last page. It was signed by the author, Eleanor H. Knowlton. Notice that this is not the name under which it appears in the library’s index. I queried Bonnie about the conflict. The answer turns out to be simple. When the journal was donated to the historical collection, the donors mis-identified the author. Elizabeth Fitzgerald Knowlton was Eleanor’s mother. Several generations later, the fine points of this family history were a bit vague and resulted in the misidentification.

Touching the pages where this woman had recorded her life’s story in a firm hand beginning more than 150 years ago gave me chicken skin whenever I stopped to think about the connection spanning this gulf of time and space. I haven’t really processed that completely, to be honest.

But here are a couple of fragments that I transcribed from the scanned pages. Even this simple task required some interpretation, because the handwritten journal lacks punctuation. No periods separate sentences, and there are no paragraphs to separate events or times. Capital letters are very sparsely used. Sentences just run together, sometimes requiring editorial judgement to wring the most sense out of the handwriting.

In any case, here’s a randomly selected section which begins back in August 1867. At this time, I think Eleanor was in her early 30’s. It gave me a taste of times.

…we are all ready to make another start will reach the top of Hulls mountain today. I am getting tired and the children and the sick men are about given out. I am anxious to make the stop of the mountain. I will be the first woman that was on the top of Hulls mountain that is white. We are now at our camp on the mountain. The hunters are all off with their guns on their shoulders. Looks like they might bring in some game. You cannot tell when to expect them back. As I have said it is the 3rd day of Aug. and the ground is white with snow and the sick are all unable to get their selves a drink of water so I will have to go and get a bucket of water. I have returned with the water and will get something to eat. It is now almost night and no one able to wait on their selves. They are suffering from lung disease the altitude is too high. Mr McTea is bleeding at his lungs. So I told Mr. Brittain we would not stay another night. We would have to go in the morning as early as we could. Next morning one of the hunters had brought in a large deer and hung it up so I told him to have the rest of the hunters come in as soon as he could. We would have to take these men off of this mountain today. if not we would not be able to get them out alive. I made them all some nice soup and did all I could for them all. Dr Hatch told his brother he did not know what the sick would do if not for me. I have now got all the camp implements picked up and put in the Alfor (?) cases all so they can be hung on the pack saddles. I suppose you know what they are. I will tell you they are made of rawhide. Now the next thing is to try to skin the buck so we will be sure of some meat. Well I see a smoke down near the spring so I went to it and there was a man who was out hunting with others and was going to get something to eat. I told him what I wanted and he came and skinned the deer for me and I cut off the hind quarters to take with us. Well in the afternoon we were all collected to gather and ready to start—and I tell you we were as anxious to get off of Hull mountain as we were to get on its top. After we get down from Hull we will then go to San Hedron. Now we are on the top of San Hendron won’t stop here only long enough to rest then will go down in to Gravely Valley which is a nice place. We are now going down the grade or trail of the San Hendron on to White Creek. It is said to be a great place for the steer to water. we are getting along nicely. There is lots of grease wood and some mathrone (madrone?). All at once someone called the crowd to halt. One of our hunters gave me that pack horse to hold that he had and said don’t you see that buck. I said no. Some one else said look at his horns and they all began to shoot. the buck did not move by this time. It was discovered to be an old mathrone stump which had the bark off and looked the color of a buck. well it was my time to laugh, and the pack horse I had charge of got scared and you ought to have been there to see the tin pans fly through the air and a small sack of flour was torn open and scattered everywhere. Well, the horse was soon caught and the cooking vessels picked up an his pack was put on and he went all right.

Then I jumped ahead to the final entry, dated February 24, 1907, not quite a year since the great San Francisco earthquake.

I will close this history for the present as I am not in possession of any news which I can write as I leave in the morning in 9 o’clock train. If i encounter any thing worth writing, I will send it to you and you can ad it to this other close the book properly I will say to you Mr. Madson what I have written is the truth and if you find anything which is not fit to publish leave it out. I have written this for you as you asked me to tell you something of my ancestors and my own life. My life has been one of worry, but honorable virtuous and honest. I now bid you both good bye and may you be prosperous and happy is the wish of your mother. Be good to yourselves and to each other. I hope to live to come home to you, if not, if there is another world where we will know each other, we will meet there. So good bye my dear children

Mrs. Eleanor F. Knowlton

And that was that. One of her daughters, my grandfather’s mother, died in September of that year, a victim of the epidemic of bubonic plague that swept San Francisco in the wake of the earthquake. But I’m not sure what happened to Eleanor. I’m sure Bonnie has the details. More to learn.